Beleriand (S, pron. [beˈlerjand]) was the region of north-western Middle-earth during the First Age. Originally, the name belonged only to the area around the Bay of Balar, but in time the name was applied to the entire land.

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In the First Age, Beleriand was among the westernmost lands of Middle-earth.[1] Beleriand had a long western shoreline with the Great Sea Belegaer, including the Bay of Balar in its south-west. The Ered Luin (Blue Mountains) formed the eastern border of Beleriand, separating it from Eriador.[1] To the south, Beleriand was bound by the Great Gulf.[2] North of Beleriand were the highland regions of Hithlum,[3]Dorthonion, and Lothlann.[4] Some people considered the land of Nevrast to be part of Beleriand, while others considered it part of Hithlum.[3]

The River Sirion, the chief river of Beleriand, running north to south, divided it into West Beleriand and East Beleriand. Crossing it east to west was a series of hills and a sudden drop in elevation known as Andram, the Long Wall. (The river sank into the ground at the Fens of Sirion, and re-emerged below the Andram at the Gates of Sirion.) To the east of the Long Wall, was the River Gelion and its six tributaries draining the Ered Luin, in Ossiriand or the Land of Seven Rivers. The River Brithon and the River Nenning were the two lesser rivers of the western land of Falas.

By F.A.587, Beleriand was mostly destroyed and submerged under the sea from the War of Wrath of the Valar against Morgoth. Only a small section of East Beleriand remained, and was known as Lindon.

In addition, fulfilling a prophecy, the graves of Túrin Turambar and Morwen survived as the island Tol Morwen. Likewise part of Dorthonion became Tol Fuin, and the Hill of Himring became the island of Himling. All of these together were known as the Western Isles.

Beleriand translates to "The Country of Balar" with the ending -ian(d) for places and countries. The OS form could have been *Balariande (aslid to e because of the following i).

The element Balar refers to Ossë, who often dwelt at the shores (although this refers to the earlier Legendarium when Osse and Uinen were Valar of the sea, not Maiar of Ulmo).[5][6] It was from Balar that the Teleri expanded and "colonised" the region of Beleriand, hence the name.[5]

The name Beleriand originally applied only to the region around the Bay of Balar whence the name, before expanded to refer to the wider region. Properly Beleriand does not refer to the Northlands such as Anfauglith, or the eastern lands of Thargelion; Nevrast and Dorthonion are "grey areas"[8]. However the term "Beleriand" is sometimes used collectivelly in fandom to include all those submerged lands.

How Karen Wynn Fonstad envisioned Beleriand relative to Eriador. The rectangle marks the region shown in the The Silmarillion map (canon); the rest, including the Thangorodrim, are Fonstad's extrapolations.

In 1979, Charles Noad[9] made an attempt to reconstruct a general map of Beleriand and Eriador. Using only the few distance indications from the text of The Silmarillion, Noad's very early attempt is remarkable as it proves very accurate despite being published before Unfinished Tales (where the island of Himling was first depicted, with Tol Fuin mentioned westwards) and The History of Middle-earth.

Ten years later, Ronald E. Kyrmse[10] independently proposed his own map reconstruction, aligning the isle of Himling with the hill of Himring. Kyrmse also identified Dolmed on the early map of Beleriand as being the same as a mountain on the Unfinished Tales map (depicted slightly apart of the mountain range and north of the wooden area in Forlindon), proving that Dolmed still existed in the Third Age (being too far north from the Gulf of Lune to have been destroyed). He might therefore have been the first to discover that Dolmed survived the destruction of Beleriand at the end of the First Age.

In the early 1990s, Didier Willis independently made the same attempt using the map from Unfinished Tales that shows Himling; the second map of Beleriand, which was published in The War of the Jewels and indicates distances;[15] and the draft map of the lands east of the Blue Mountains published in The Treason of Isengard, which also indicates distances. Quite similar to Noad and Kymrse's earlier attempts, Willis' interpretation shows a slightly smaller Beleriand than Fonstad's and places the First Age Bay of Balar closer to the Third Age Gulf of Lune.[16] Not knowing Kyrmse's earlier interpretation, Willis also independently recognized Dolmed on the early map of Beleriand and criticized Fonstad and Robert Foster who suggested the opposite.[17][18]